Touch and go for Durban as Commonwealth Games host status

16 January 2017 - 19:49 By Matthew Savides
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It’s still touch and go over whether or not Durban will host the Commonwealth Games as international organisers are in the “final stages” of assessing the city’s last-gasp attempt to salvage the event.

However‚ a statement issued to TMG Digital on Monday by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) appeared to leave the door open for the event to move elsewhere.

Durban was warned in October that it could lose the rights to host the event unless they urgently met key criteria‚ including making a required R26-million payment to the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF)‚ setting up a Local Organising Committee and signing the host city contract. Many of these were meant to have been met within three months of the awarding of the rights to Durban in September 2015 but have not yet been done.

The city and country made a submission to the federation ahead of an imposed November 30 deadline‚ but sources indicated at the time that the two bodies were still far apart.

On Monday‚ the federation told TMG Digital that the Durban 2022 submission was still being reviewed.

“A review team appointed by the CGF is in the final stages of evaluating the submissions received from South Africa to determine whether Durban's proposals for hosting the Games are consistent with their original Bid Commitments. A final recommendation will be referred to the CGF Executive Board once the review team has completed its deliberations‚” a spokesman said.

Of particular concern will be the comment that the games could go else where because of changes made by South Africa to the original bid submission. The Sunday Times reported in November that among the changes are a downgrading of plans for opening ceremony‚ disputes over whether the funds will come from a single source of from each government department and possible changes to the athletes’ village.

A timeline for when a decision might be reached has not yet been given.

Repeated attempts to get comment from the department of sports and recreation were unsuccessful on Monday‚ while SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) said they were unaware of any decision to remove the games from Durban.

Sascoc reportedly spent nearly R120-million on its bid for the 2022 Games. The total costs are an estimated R8.2-billion‚ and a projected GDP benefit of about R11-billion. TMG Digital/Sunday Times

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